Where is your treasure?
The man was twenty-two when the prophecy came.
Kneeling on thin church carpet that smelled faintly of coffee and old hymnals, he heard it — not loudly, not dramatically, but with a certainty that settled into his bones:
“I will bless you with abundance far richer than your wildest thoughts.”
He built his life around that sentence.
He didn’t drink.
Didn’t cheat.
Didn’t skip church.
He tithed.
He volunteered.
He stayed respectable.
But he was never present.
Sixty-hour weeks became seventy.
His children’s soccer games were replaced by conference calls.
Anniversaries became red-eye flights.
When his wife cried to him, he said, “This is for us.”
When his children asked him to play, he said, “After this deal closes.”
Eventually, the house went quiet.
By fifty-five, the promise had come true — or so he believed.
A glass-and-steel home on a hill.
Accounts with more zeroes than memories.
A silence so heavy it rang.
That night, he dreamed.
He was back in that old church — but it was empty now. No pews. No pulpit. Only light, and a Man standing in the center of it.
Not distant.
Not terrifying.
Familiar.
“You kept everything I gave you,” the Man said gently.
“You just never gave yourself.”
“I obeyed,” the man said. “I stayed clean. I did what You asked.”
Jesus stepped closer.
“I asked for your heart.”
Silence fell like snow.
“I gave you a promise,” Jesus said.
“You turned it into a transaction.”
“I didn’t waste it.”
“No,” Jesus said softly.
“You narrowed it.”
Something in the man broke.
“I thought if I built enough, You would be pleased.”
Jesus knelt so they were eye to eye.
“I was pleased when you listened to your wife.
I was pleased when you laughed with your children.
I was pleased when you stopped striving and noticed Me.”
Then His voice grew warmer still.
“You think I was against your blessing.
You think I watched your success with crossed arms.”
The man looked up.
“I gave you the mind that built,” Jesus said.
“The discipline. The opportunity. The favor.
I love to bless My children.”
“I am not small.
I am not stingy.”
He placed His hand over the man’s chest.
“But I never bless you so that blessing can replace Me.”
Tears fell freely now.
“I always wanted you.
I wanted your presence.”
“Then why did You feel so far away?” the man whispered.
“I was always near,” Jesus said.
“You were just always occupied.”
“I wanted to sit with you at the dinner table.
I wanted to hear you pray with your children.
I wanted you to lay your head on My chest when you were afraid.”
The man trembled.
“You didn’t lose Me because you had abundance,” Jesus said.
“You lost Me because you stopped seeking Me.”
Then Jesus spoke words the man somehow knew before he heard them:
“For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the LORD,
thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil,
to give you hope in your final outcome.
Then you will call upon Me, and you will come and pray to Me, and I will hear you.
And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”
— Jeremiah 29:11–13 (AMPC)
Jesus lifted the man’s face.
“I did give you a future.
I did give you hope.
But you tried to reach it without Me.”
“I laugh and smile when you win. I rejoice when you grow.
But I don’t need your striving.”
“I want your heart.
All of it.
The ambitious part.
The fearful part.
The lonely part.
The hopeful part.”
A small smile touched His face.
“As you draw near to me, you realize I have been with you always.”
The man whispered, “Is it too late?”
Jesus didn’t hesitate.
“I’m standing here with you, aren’t I?”
He held out His hand.
“Come home.
Not to your achievement.
To Me.”
And as the man reached for Him, a final truth filled the light, not as condemnation, but as mercy:
“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
— Matthew 6:21 (AMPC)
